Doug Swinton

Princeton Featured Artist

I never really intended to make art a career; it just keeps happening. Maybe it’s living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and being surrounded the spectacular landscape. Maybe it’s that my mom was always in the kitchen painting still lifes of wicker baskets of bright fruit and Chianti wine bottles, or maybe it was all the doodles and drawings that adorned each and every page of my math book.

Somehow, art has now become my career. Since my childhood, drawing and painting have always played an important role in my life. A big part of me never really left kindergarten. I still live for the “Hey, Mom, look what I made!” I think exhibiting in galleries is just a bit of an extension of that.

Describing my art is like trying to hit a moving target. Just when I think it’s going one direction, the ever-elusive leopard slips away and changes its spots. Slathering thick viscid paint on a freshly unwrapped canvas is sensual. For me it’s always been more about the doing than the end product. It’s like being at a live concert. The energy that comes from the doing is a highly powerful thing. I also get bored very easily, so I tend to flit from subject to subject. As J. R. R. Tolkien wrote,

“Not all those who wander are lost.” No matter what the subject, it’s always the same, the most amount of information with the least amount of brushstrokes. Canada couldn’t be a better place to live. But for me as an artist, the close proximity of the prairies, foothills, and mountains of Alberta makes my home province a never-ending dream. I’ve been lucky and have painted in many countries, but to me there is still nothing more beautiful than a cold beer and a hot Calgary summer sunset.